EWS nursery admissions: NGOs ask govt to extend deadline

“The department has given 22 days for information dissemination, obtaining required documents and filing applications — each of which is a time-intensive act… The department needs 22 days for conducting the online lottery which should take a few minutes only. It is a clear case of asymmetry of expectations,” the letter stated.

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“Since the system is in transition mode (online system for DoE recognised schools and offline for MCD recognised) there is lot of confusion amongst parents as many of them have interpreted it as a choice between offline and online. Our organisations are trying our best to spread accurate information. However, this too, requires time,” added the letter.

Adding that the government has no helpline to address queries and that its grievance redressal mechanism takes a lot of time, they said it was up to NGOs to bridge the gap. “The website (www.edudel.nic.in) was down on January 10 and 11 leading to effectively two wasted days. Since the process is online for the first time, parents require time to familiarise themselves with the new system. Cyber cafés, seeing a business opportunity, have started charging as high as Rs 1,000. It is praiseworthy that the government has instructed all gender resource centres to be the centres for online filling of forms. However, they are shut on Sundays and have specific timings on weekdays. Also, they began to work only from January 11. By then, half the days allotted for submission had gone by,” the letter pointed out.

Change in requirement of documents, such as address proof, is another reason.

“Till last year, the rent agreement was an acceptable document as address proof, this year it is not. This has led parents to arrange for alternative documents such as address proof which is time-consuming,” it added.